Balladeer's Blog

Once again I’ll say that a young Bruce Campbell would have made a perfect G-8 in a television series!

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the neglected Pulp Hero G-8. This is a story-by- story look at the adventures of this World War One American fighter pilot who – along with his two wingmen the Battle Aces – took on various supernatural and super- scientific menaces thrown at the Allied Powers by the Central Powers of Germany, Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Muslim Turks.

G-8 was created by Robert J Hogan in 1933 when World War One was still being called simply the World War or the Great War. Over the next eleven years Hogan wrote 110 stories featuring the adventures of G-8, the street-smart pug Nippy Weston and the brawny giant Bull Martin. The regular cast was rounded out by our hero’s archenemy Doktor Krueger, by Battle, G-8’s British manservant and by our hero’s girlfriend R-1: an American spy/ nurse whose real name, like G-8’s was never revealed.

58. FANGS OF THE SERPENT (July 1938) – Introducing  the German intelligence agent known only by the codename the Serpent. Kaiser Wilhelm himself gives the Serpent his latest mission: to destroy G-8 and his Battle Aces. A-1, Hogan’s fictional head of American Intelligence, personally warns our hero about this new adversary’s abilities.

The Serpent, like plenty of other G-8 villains, sports a memorable disfigurement. In his case a twisted spine from which he gets his codename and his distorted posture.  That would be a detriment to his career as a spy if not for the fact that his real strength lies in his supernatural mastery of the art of hypnosis. Continue reading →